There were a few things Shelley remembered.
Most of them were shrouded by regret, and she physically had to strain to ignore the things she remembered best: scalpels, frightening pains, looking down at herself to see two raw stubs, looking down at herself to see her skin bubbling, not being able to look down at herself.
She was thankful, in some limited capacity, to have been transported to a hospital bed. It was the first cloth she had touched in weeks, and it aided sleeping – impervious to most of the medicine they were struggling to feed her, she lay awake in agony from sun up to sun down until her body gave in.
And then she slept well.
Words were tossed around when aides came into check her pulse, her temperature. Blurred figures enrobed in white slid in and out of her vision, words fell on her ears and left without comprehension.
Monsterous
Horrible
Don't know
Never seen
Poor thing
Nurses talked and then shouted at her in vain and Shelley hissed back, gurgled back; she didn't remember English but she remembered vocalizing, so she tried her best and they wiped spittle from her chin and sighed, resolving to try it again the next day.
Time didn't have meaning; time was shame and discomfort. Time was the part between being awake and being asleep, time was the part between pain meds that almost worked and pain meds that made it worse.
She hissed at everyone that came in. Her noises were clogged by spit and muffled by the extra teeth that had ripped her gums to push their way to dominance at the front of the smile that didn't show anymore. She hissed as practice. She hissed good mornings, good nights, and go aways.
She hissed at the Monsignior when he came in.